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While some might say we've seen "Peak Waste Vegetable Oil", there is still plenty of oil out there to be had.  Sure, the days are gone where individuals randomly poach a restaurant's waste oil by offering free collection, but when folks can offer 10 cents a gallon to secure a restaurant into a contract, then it might as well be free.

I am by no means a proponent of paying for Waste Vegetable Oil, but I am saying that it's available for the individual if you want it(and how could you not want fuel independence and your exhaust smelling like french fries).  The oil is around.  Billions of gallons a year are being dumped into containers behind restaurants every year.  The difference now is that oil is more of a commodity.  It's fetching $2.50+ for unfiltered yellow grease.   Companies, entrepreneurs, and restaurant owners know it now has value and that has changed the game.

Are we to curdle up and wallow in hydrogenated fat about this development, casting out our fine tuned proce

Ok, let's hear your stories of 2011 road trips.   How many greasy miles did you go?  Did you bring your fuel with you or dumpster dive?  Any breakdowns or other fun tales?

I'll start it off.  Back in March, my fiance and I took a 500+ mile round trip to Burney falls to celebrate our engagement.  I had just finished converting my 79 300sd and this was actually the maiden voyage.  I had 20 gallons in my tank and an extra 15 gallons in cubies in the trunk.  35 gallons of oil and over 250lbs of weight in the trunk.  I also brought my key tools, extra hoses and clamps, flashlight and my oily pants should things go awry.   I had done a couple of conversions in the past, so I wasn't too worried about breakdowns, but one never wants to risk a breakdown with a lady in the car.  Although, she didn't completely freak out when I was crawling around in the snow trying to fix a pressure switch on my truck on our last trip, I am trying to make a better name for veggie oil.   80 mph on I5 the who

We travel to visit Paul Totman in Colusa, California to visit a seed to biodiesel facility. They are running two 5 tonne seed presses feeding into a WVO designs Beast Centrifuge for de-gumming. Biodiesl processing, methanol and glycerin recovery with springboard equipment

WVO Designs - On The Road Episode #4 from WVO Designs on Vimeo.

If you are having trouble viewing try on Vimeo or YouTube

There are some major oil stains on my driveway.  There’s vegetable oil from bad fill up attempts and filter changes.  Even more plentiful are the scores of little dots and one large black tar pool from elusive motor oil leaks.  I’ll admit, my 79 300SD is one leaky beast, even more than my 97 F250(and a Ford mechanic once told me that the 7.3 Powerstrokes are externally lubricating engines).

I’m still not resigned to having a leaky car.  I’ve changed out the oil cooler lines and turbo waste gate hose.     Frustration has set in however, as more leaks seem to pop up daily.   Not just oil leaks either.  There’s a growing radiator l

Happy 4^th of July, or Independence Day America!   235 years ago this nation declared independence from the rule of Imperial Britain.  Religious, economic and personal freedom was the alluring promise of this “new land”.   Liberty of spirit is a very powerful and desirable thing.  Thus, the collective thinking and might of the people was to resist control in any way…and that we did and will continue to do.

A declaration of anything is really meaningless unless there is action to back it up.  It takes continual sacrifice, fighting, suffering, ingenuity, collaboration, creativeness, etc to break and stay free from the powers that be.  Americans have tirelessly fought, suffered and worked to protect certain freedoms over the years.  I am thankful for this and enjoy my religious, speech and other liberties daily.  What better day than Independence Day to address those “other” liberties and freedoms that we are willing to stand by and let erode.  What about energy independence

 I thought I knew what I was doing.   I needed fittings for coolant and veggie oil.  To save on shipping, and to be tantalized by a large selection of fittings, I went down to the local hydraulic fittings “Superstore”.   Naively thinking the store would have aisles and rows of steel, brass, aluminum, titanium, kryptonite etc fittings, I was disappointed when I was shown a very limited selection of brass fittings.      What the #@@%#?  Since I was there already, I decided to take advantage of what they had and bought $64 in fittings for a flat plate heat exchanger.  The heat exchanger was only $60 on ebay!   The consoling thought soon followed, saying that this would be it, I don’t have to buy many more fittings.    Well, 30+ trips to Lowes & Homer D, and  ~$150 later, I’m still not sure I have all of the fittings to adapt to my tank, fuel filter, valves, coolant and stock fuel line connections.   Part of the problem is that my system was not comprehensive, and I piecemealed used compon

With radiation once again poisoning Japan, this time from nuclear power plants, the news is abuzz with facts, figures and questions about Nuclear Power.  It's not hard to spot out the "white knights" from the nuclear industry, flown in special to explain how safe nuclear power is and how much we need it.  I agree with one point, in that right now, we need it.   There are 104 Nuclear power reactors in the US.   They are firmly planted in  31 states.  If you live in the Eco-friendly state of Vermont, your state's electricity is primarily powered by Nuclear Reactions...72%(So that Ben and Jerry's we've all indulged in is likely made from Nuclear Power).   Over 20% of US electric power comes from Nukes.

The claim that "nuclear is still safe" on the other hand, rings the B.S alarm bells much like when my 4 year old tries to cover up a simple lie.   For starters, Nuclear power produces a toxic poison that lasts forever as far as we are concerned.  How is it OK to produce something like

"It's all about the oil", goes the old WVO saying.  If there's no vegetable oil, then there is nothing for our centrifuges to clean, nothing for our heat exchangers to heat and nothing good to smell coming out of our tailpipes.  Our ingenious cleaning/filtering, heating and switching mechanisms will be rendered useless without the "liquid gold", yellow grease or WVO.  Yes, as important as it is to properly clean and heat your oil, it is also becoming equally important to find and secure your quality WVO source.

What used to be a liability for the restaurant industry, waste oil has been turned into an asset.  The "garbage" oil that had been dumped from the fryers and cost money for disposal is now fetching anywhere up to $1.00 a gallon in some places.  Why this change?  On the macro-level, this can be attributed to the price of "yellow grease" in the commodity market.  See http://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/lswagenergy.pdf fo

That hush-hush, politically charged and relatively unexplored term came up on Yahoo News recently.  No, it's not "Arctic Summer Sea Ice", or "budget deficit" or even "Fisher-Underwood Complex."(Though, I'm amused by any infusions of romance into the hockey world, and was happy to hear that Ottawa has traded Mike Fisher to Nashville so he can be with Carrie).   I'M TALKING ABOUT PEAK OIL!  I really don't like that word or idea.  Most of us don't.  It's better just to suck on the pacifier of ignorance when it comes to predictions such as this.  "Mr. president, please tell us it's OK.  Mr.  Cheney, Mr. Enron, Mr. Chevron, please let us know we can keep driving like we do."  Hell, I love to drive.  I need to drive.  Our infrastructure is bult around our dependence for efficient and relatively affordable transportation.   So

 August 2010 - I traded in my beloved 1997 Vegistroked Ford PSD with for a Toyota Camry.  Poor economy, lack of landscaping work, change in interests and impending tranny rebuild forced me to let go of the Beast.  I wanted a diesel, but the dealership had nothing for me and the offer on my truck was twice blue book thanks to a new program via Autotrader.   As I drove away in the camry,  I told myself little lies, "This is only temporary....this is the easy and responsible thing to do...."  As the weeks churned on,  the fuel bills mounted and one to many whiffs of gasoline exhaust I began to break down.  Additionally, it was hard to ignore the mounting stash of 300 gallons of clean WVO in my side yard.

November 2010 -  "Broke and desperate"